Seasonal King Tides, Rain Swamp South Florida

MIAMI (CBSMiami) — Between the king tides and the rain it’s really wet around South Florida.

In places like Doral, the rain from a tropical disturbance is causing a flooding mess.

Adding insult to injury, splashing vehicles made it even worse for drivers who stalled out in deep water.

Business owners in Northwest Miami-Dade spent the night dealing with the mess left behind from heavy rains.

One car dealership had no business and at least one vehicle was damaged by high waters. “I can’t do nothing because when the customer come and want to see the car, all the cars are under the water,” said Hilwom Torres, the manager at Franhill Motors.

In Fort Lauderdale, it’s king tides that have Las Olas under water during high tide.

“I’m in no shoes and shorts because you know you got to walk through shin deep water,” said Financial Adviser Steve Rowe.

Inside the F&G Salon and Spa, they’re doing everything they can to keep the water out. It was pretty high today. They, like their neighbors, have sand bags piled up at the front door.

“We don’t have water this year but last year we had because we learned our lesson to put sand bags in front of the salon. Thank God, this year we did not have this issue,” said Medi Idriss with the salon.

Cars driving fast are making it more difficult to keep the water out.

“If you look outside, it’s pretty high up and cars drive pretty fast that create the wake I told you about for the water to come in. So hopefully people need to understand they need to drive slowly so the water does not come into our salon or other businesses,” said Idriss.

The city installed a berm on one stretch of Las Olas to keep the water in the Intracoastal. They’re also working on adding tidal valves and building up sea walls but they have to strike a careful balance.

“Sea walls work both ways. Sea walls can prevent the water from coming over it, but at the same time water from rain and other sources is on the other side of the sea wall and prevents it from draining,” said Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler.

It looks the same in parts of east Hollywood where water is spilling out of the intracoastal and onto A1A and into neighborhoods.

Resident Shannon Alfele was seen trying to find the storm drain under standing water in her East Hollywood neighborhood after water from the Intracoastal and South Lake bubbled up through the drains.

“Every 12 hours, it rolls down the street and I’m having a hard time draining it because of the storm debris that blocked our drain right now,” said Alfele.

Using her rake, Shannon was able to find that storm drain and clear it enough to finally get that flood water moving and out of the street.

At 53rd Street and Collins Ave in Miami Beach, they’re seeing the same thing. Cars are driving around flood waters coming from the Intracoastal from those king tides.

New pumps are keeping water low in parts of Miami Beach but the half-billion dollar storm water improvement project is only 15 percent complete.

The assistant city manager warns people to expect more flooding in the coming days.

“We’re going to see some tidal flooding over the next couple of days, rainfall on top of that and these heavy East winds are really piling the water up in Biscayne Bay,” said Assistant City Manager Eric Carpenter.

King Tides are also expected to occur November 12-18 and December 12-16.

Ted Scouten

Multiple Emmy award winning journalist Ted Scouten has been the familiar face at the scene of international stories that have affected South Florida...More fromTed Scouten